


Megan's Song

by Tousled_Sky



Category: Family Guy
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Cutting, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Major Character Injury, Mentions of Drowning, Other, Referenced suicide, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tousled_Sky/pseuds/Tousled_Sky
Summary: Meg was four years old when her father fractured her skull and blinded her for two weeks, twelve years old when she first felt like she was truly worthless, and sixteen the first time she cut too deep.





	Megan's Song

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Compound interest is a hell of a drug](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862041) by [westintotheblack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/westintotheblack/pseuds/westintotheblack). 



> Just a short work regarding Meg I wrote about two weeks ago. Mind the tags, and enjoy.  
> Title is a reference to Adam's Song by blink-182.

"I couldn't wait till I got home, To pass the time in my room alone" - Blink 182, Adam's Song

Meg was four years old when her father fractured her skull and blinded her for two weeks.

He had been messing around with a bat that he had put nails through in the backyard. Brian filming him as he threw plates for Peter to break with the bat, which Peter proved to be terrible at - he'd had a few too many beers (which perhaps explained, but didn't excuse, what he did that day). Meg had been watching as she swung back and forth on the tree swing, giggling at the sight.

Catching sight of her, Peter grinned in a way that Meg had come to dread now. He called to her; "Meg, sweetheart, why don't you come over here?" Meg, being the innocent child she was, jumped off the swing and ran over to her father.

"Yes, daddy?" she chimed gently, bouncing up on her toes as she stood with her hands clasped behind her back.

Peter swung the bat into her face.

She was knocked backwards, clutching at her face as she landed and rolled, gasping as she hit the ground.

"Peter, what the fuck are you doing!?" Brian had exclaimed, dropping the camera and running over the preschooler. Peter had waved the bat as a dismissal. "Ah, don't worry about it, Brian! She's a tough kid - she'll be laughing about it in no time!" Peter had replied cheerily.

Brian, being sane, didn't pay Peter any mind - he fell to his knees as he reached Meg, gently helping to roll over the little girl so she was facing him.

Staring up at him with one uncovered eye, hyperventilating and too shocked to cry, blood dripped from in between Meg's fingers that she had pressed over her right eye.

Brian, the only responsible adult in the house, was the one who drove her to the hospital. She had a scratch along her eye - no thicker than a paper cut, but deep enough to break several blood vessels. The main bleeding came from the slice in her upper forehead, from one of the other nails.

"You're very lucky that the damage wasn't any deeper." The doctor had told Brian. "If she had hit that corner a little harder" - the excuse Brian had come up with is that Meg ran into a the corner of a counter - lazy and unlikely to work, but Dr. Hartman wasn't...quite all there, and bought it - "then she would be permanently blind in that eye."

Even now, if Meg shifted her eyes a certain way, the world went blurry even with her glasses.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meg was twelve years old when she first felt like she was truly worthless.

"You failed the class?! This is unbelievable! You're such an irresponsible brat!"

"I don't know why I even failed it!" Meg cried. "I thought I was doing well - I got A's on all my tests!"

"Oh, I'm so sure you did." Lois snapped back. "And that's why you failed Math now. I mean, how can you fail seventh grade math? Your brain-dead little brother could do this kind of stuff - and he spends his time hitting his head into a wall!"

"Let me - tomorrow, I'll talk to the teacher about it. Maybe I can do extra credit or something." Meg stuttered.

"As if that'll help! You should have just studied the first time. There's no hope for you if you live your life only taking responsibility after you've fucked everything up - when are you going to act your age?!"

Lois rolled her eyes when Meg lifted her hands to her face to hide as she began to cry. "Oh sure, sure. Just cry about it - I'm sure that'll solve everything. Honestly, you're such a spoilt brat - you mess something up and then start crying about it, boo-hooing like you weren't the one who got yourself into the mess in the first place." She dropped Meg's report card that she had been waving around like a sword. "If you want to apologize for wasting both your parent's and your teacher's time, come find me when you can be reasonable."

That was the first night Meg hurt herself - biting into her arm until she could taste blood, staring at the crescent marks through blurred eyes as her chest hiccuped with the aftershocks of sobs.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meg was sixteen the first time she cut too deep.

She's had a day of being taunted at school and a night of being taunted at home. Kids at school either ignore her, mock her, or simply stare at her hatefully. She knows she's the school freak - she knows kids are cruel. She's accepted it.

Perhaps even crueler is her family. She tries not to eat at the table anymore, because whenever they see her, they have only unkind things to say.

If she talks at dinner she's sneered at - like the other night, when she mentioned, "My school is having a play of Romeo and Juliet - I was thinking of auditioning." Peter had replied with his mouth full.

"Sorry Meg, but there aren't any parts for ugly witches in that play. Try again when they do Hansel and Gretel - you could be the witch that tries to eat the kids and gets killed at the end!" Everyone had laughed, and Meg had weakly as well, because she knew if she didn't laugh, she would cry.

When she doesn't talk, though, it's even worse, in a way. They don't acknowledge her at all - they only talk to one another, laugh at jokes that Meg isn't a part of. She feels like she's standing outside a circle of people who won't let her join - a forgotten, pale ghost.

That night, she cuts four times into her arm until she gets so angry that she drags the razor too deep, too hard.

The moment the blood starts coming - too much, too fast, _oh god_ \- she knows she's messed up.

She tries to stop the bleeding with a towel, but as the cloth under her fingers only gets redder, damper, it becomes evident this isn't going to help, that she's going to need stitches and professional help to stop the bleeding. She calls 911 and quietly leaves the house to go wait for them outside, so they don't come in and cause a scene.

She sits on the dew-damp grass for about twenty minutes, holding the towel with the blood patch growing larger and larger and trying not to panic, until the ambulance pulls up to her curb (they'd left the sirens off like she'd asked, thank god).

She steps up into the back with no fight, trying to act calm even as her hands shake against the towel.

She's gone for two days at a hospital - she knows her insurance information, she knows the right answers to give in the evaluation, and somehow her parent's don't get called. She expects to have some explaining to do when she gets home, however.

She's rehearsing the start of her story as she walks up to the house. She opens the door and Lois greets her easily, normally.

"Oh hi honey. Did school let out early today? You should go clean your room."

Meg is left standing there shocked as Lois leaves the room briskly now that Meg's entered it, realizing slowly.

They didn't even notice she was gone.

She almost has to go back to the hospital from how badly she hurts herself that night - hating her "family", hating herself.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meg is nineteen when she writes a suicide letter saying she's drowning herself in the ocean. 

She leaves it on her bed and then leaves this life far behind her, hoisting her new backpack and it's contents onto her shoulders and walking out the front door into the night; the darkness surrounding her, dissipating her.

She watches the search for her body a few states away, running a hand through her freshly cut and dyed hair at her familiar neighborhood on this foreign screen - just the news playing in a restaurant. She can feel the unfamiliar clothing lying weirdly across her skin, and when she looks in the buildings and sees her reflection, she doesn't recognize the stranger that stares back.

The search goes for days, but Meg Griffin's body is never found.

And Megan never, ever comes back.

**Author's Note:**

> The treatment of Meg in the show absolutely sickens me. It's not even funny - it's just sad to see how alone and vulnerable and manipulated this poor girl is. I'd love to see her leave her family and find people who want her - she deserves that.


End file.
